Viable vs gimmicky starter builds(IMHO)

[duderominus]

Viable starter builds are able to crawl all the way up to the depths of hell on their own, and be useful once they get there. This is a list of the builds I've tried/seen do just that, and/or do well effectively farming in Annihillus, while not especially well geared. I'm writing this to dispell the notion that all builds are equal. Ofcourse, have fun and use whatever build you like--this guide is just a guideline to help people struggling to start in Annihillus, and my opinion. The class-specific sets for all of these classes are highly recommended.

There are no especially viable paladin builds with the use of Griswold's Legacy that I'm aware of. I'd reccomend avoiding builds not mentioned in this post until you already have the gear necessary to make them viable. There are viable smiters, javazons and elemental druids out there, but they are wearing gear far better than their class set.

The poison necro:

20 poison dagger
20 poison explosion
20 poison nova
20 poison maelstrom
1 revive
1 confuse
1 clay golem
1 summon resists
1 golem mastery

This build is extremely versatile, from soloing the Lich King and Dreamlands, to opening and finishing, and soloing inferno cows, the poison necro with 1 point invested in one-point-wonder skills is at the top of this list as the most viable starter character. To top it off, Trang's set has teleport on Annihillus, and the lich form has had it's FCR frames reduced, making it an extremely viable and effective starter/solo character. Revive, clay golem and confuse are used for tanking, poison maelstrom is your primary damage dealing ability. The only draw back to playing a poison necro is the lack of burst damage, excluding corpse explosion, because it requires a corpse--making him look like he's barely doing anything at all when grouped with equally geared trap assassins, sorceresses or bowazons.

The trap assassin:
20 wake of fire/20 lightning trap
(all synergies)
1 fade
1 weapon block
1 shadow master/warrior(optinal)
1 mindblast(optional)
1 death sentry

Natalya's set has some fantastic bonuses on Annihillus, including teleport and a HUGE bonus to trap damage. Traps benefit significantly from trap placement and kiting strategy. With some practice, the trap assassin can be as effective as the poison necromancer at soloing. The assassin suffers from higher FCR breakpoints than a sorceress, and suffer slower ramp up time(placing traps; similar to most fire sorceress abilities).

Be warned: Natalya's Mark is rare and in high demand, as most assassins want TWO of this rare claw.

The shield throw barbarian(IK)/the frenzy barbarian(BK):
Shield throw:
20 shield throw
20 shout
20 berserk
20 battle orders
1 resists
1 run speed
1 mace mastery(for IK set)

Frenzy:
20 frenzy
20 double swing
20 taunt
20 battle orders
1 resists
1 run speed
1 battle command

The IK barb is an extremely harty tank, the frenzy barb is less so, but does more damage with the Bul-Kathos set(thanks to the set's significant buffs). The IK set' weapon has been changed to a one-handed legendary mallet, allowing IK barbs to equip a shield. This modification makes shield throw jump 3k damage when the set is complete(providing 5-7 skill points and elemental damage from the hammer). IK Shield Throw barbs and BK frenzy barbs can effectively tank and solo high-end trash, like all mobs from the inferno portals in act 5(one raven frost ring will highly boost survival rate), all of the trash in ryleh, and inferno cows. You'll usually die against many bosses, but the removal of gold dependency(repairs/pots) from Annihillus makes those deaths much less daunting. A dead boss is a dead boss, eh?

The crow druid:

20 murder of crows
20 raven
20 oak sage
1 bear form
1-20 lycanthropy(optional, adds health)
1-20 point(s) each in the mammal summons(optional)

The crow druid is an odd addition to Annihillus. Murder of crows is a physical AOE with a range a bit wider than a sorc's nova, and comes with tons of life leech, making him a fantastic tank. The aldur's set doesn't have teleport, but significantly buffs murder of crows' damage, and has the assassin skill Burst of Speed, granting significant R/W speed. Crow druids are about as effective at killing/tanking as the barbarian builds noted above, but flourish better in AOE situations, but suffer against bosses since they cannot benefit from Crushing Blow. The bear summon does a bit of damage, but the summons are mostly used as disposable tanks. Murder of Crows can be cast while in bear form, so bear form's added health is widely utilized by most crow druids. When you get a Storm Shield, put a shael in it immediately--bear form's block animation is extremely slow, and you'll notice an improvement immediately, in DPS and survivability.

The Cold Sorceress:

20 frozen orb/blizzard
(all)synergies
1-10 cold mastery(the cap on - enemy resists is -100, which you'll frequently pass with gear)
1 teleport
1 static
1 shiver/frozen armor
1 enchant(NOT OPTIONAL)*
1 energy shield(optional)

The cold sorceress is a classic starting character, given her inherit teleport, and the fastest FCR breakpoints of all the classes. Unfortunately, the buffs to Tal Rasha's set has been a little lack luster, since the conviction aura is short ranged and takes a second to apply to mobs, not helping the quick-hitting, mid-range distance of Frozen Orb. Tal Rasha's is the easiest class set to grow out of. Although fire sorceresses are arguably viable, fire skills are too slow to compete against cold skills. While meteor or pyroblast are just arriving at the mob, blizzard has already tic'd twice on the mob. And while hydra is coming out of the ground, frozen orb has already swept through the pack of mobs. Fireball and lightning have insane potential damage, but suffer from immunes and require more accuracy than Frozen Orb.

The sorceress excells at farming old content. Faster teleport, and quick/hard hitting blizzard damage(from far away) means faster farming of keys, organs, dust and worldstones. If you could somehow get a viable merc tank on Annihillus, I'd bet sorcs could out perform poison necros and trap asns in soloing new content, but unfortunately, merc tanks in anything but the very best gear die fast on Annihilus, so a Tal's sorc's place is in groups or old content. It's common for sorceresses to use Storm Shield and raise dexterity to raise block chance to 75%, greatly increasing survivability.

* Enchant adds elemental damage to all sorceress skills. It is MANDATORY. 1 point in enchant makes my sorc's frozen orb go from 5k damage to 7k damage.

Bowazon:
20 exploding arrow
20 freezing arrow
40(synergies)
1-20 valk
1 point in each passive skill

Bowazons have historically been under powered, unless HEAVILY invested in. With the buffs to Mavina's set, the bowazon has become quite viable, sometimes even outpacing sorceresses in bursty DPS, since the set allows you to cast 5 freezing or exploding arrows at once, turning it into an uber multishot. Unfortunately, trying to gear past the Mavina's set is still profoundly cost prohibitive, given that the next best bow drops from Cthulu, and all other builds for the amazon are very gimmicky. I'm not sure what a mav's set geared bowazon can solo, but the benefit of having two elements to choose from, while always doing physical damage to boot(higher than with an actual multishot) is nothing to shake a stick at. Bowazons sit on the line between viable and gimmicky, so I don't recommend an Amazon as a starting character, but a Mavina's set and the hartyness of a maxed out valkyre are worth mentioning as somewhat viable.

[Lucid]

Nice ty! Ive just overflew this now, but maxing out coldmastery is definitly worth it on annihilus! Since -% cold resist also pierces trough enemy resists, and there are plently of monsters with 170 coldres. This will make you need to have up to -270% cold mastery from gear and mastery to bring this monster to -100% and be capped. And 270% is alot... And there are bosses that have for sure even more than 170 res

[LordManhammer]

Griswold's can make for a decent Blessed Hammer build if you're in to that sort of thing It leaves open slots for either Divinity Gloves or the new Lazarath Leathers and Death's Advance or Myrman's for -magic resists. Seraph's Hymn and Nature's Peace also now have - magic resists. Or you can go with dual Pally SOJ's for +20 magic damage. Blessed hammer now also can proc on hit effects along with CB etc.

[LordManhammer]

Bear DuDu with even the shittiest gear can start farming act 5 Inferno portals immediately with all of the phys pierce you get. The ability to summon all of your beasts to help you at the same time is great as well. Just sit behind your wall of meat shields and spam shockwave. If you can get a hold of a weapon for your melee merc that has chance to cast decrepify(Set item Bill, Reaper's Toll or unique champion sword) monsters will melt even faster and your summons will have greater survivability. Starting with this class in HC is a no brainer. Once you get a full Aldur's set it rivals an IK shield throw Barb IMO.

[soulkush]

For the trap assassin, you're missing the very important skill called jack of all trades. This skill is an absolute must. Its in the martial arts tree where pheonix strike use to be.